{"id":949,"date":"2022-01-20T11:38:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T09:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/machete.co.za\/machete-custom-theme\/?p=949"},"modified":"2022-04-05T12:27:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T10:27:48","slug":"productivity-hack-use-ticktick-to-integrate-your-to-do-list-your-calendar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/machete.co.za\/machete-custom-theme\/productivity-hack-use-ticktick-to-integrate-your-to-do-list-your-calendar\/","title":{"rendered":"Productivity Hack: Use TickTick to Integrate your To Do List & your Calendar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Productivity Hack: Use TickTick to Integrate your To-Do List & your Calendar<\/h3>\n

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For an absurdly long time I have been struggling to manage my time using two familiar tools that should have been talking to each other, but weren\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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One is a to-do list and the other a calendar.<\/h3>\n

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Two simple and ancient systems that have both successfully evolved from their paper-based origins into the digital world, where they now cheerfully emit reminders and nudges and chirrups and alarms of various kinds.<\/p>\n

The problem is, until very recently, these two systems have been\u00a0competing<\/em>\u00a0for my precious pool of available work hours \u2014 not\u00a0collaborating<\/em>\u00a0to help me to get the most out of this non-renewable resource.<\/p>\n

Generally speaking, my calendar wins hands down. A meeting must be honored, whether it\u2019s in person or on Zoom; a deadline for an ad must be observed, and must be followed closely, it seems, by a second meeting, only to be succeeded by a medical appointment, a lunch date, a trip to fetch a family member from the airport, and then another Zoom call or two and \u2026 hey presto!<\/p>\n

That promising patch of potential productivity between 9 am and 5 pm has been transmuted into the past imperfect, littered with the remains of my largely untouched list of tasks and priorities. The unticked items take their sullen revenge by ruining my evening, their unshortened agenda casting a lengthening shadow of guilt over my leisure time, and doubling the to-do pressure for the following day.<\/p>\n

Drag-and-drop time-blocking with TickTick<\/h3>\n

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If this sounds familiar, I can heartily recommend a time management technique called\u00a0time-blocking<\/strong>, and a very handy app called\u00a0TickTick<\/strong>\u00a0that can help you get your calendar and your to-do list to mesh, overcoming some of the effects of\u00a0digital overload<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In essence, TickTick is a powerful and flexible task management app \u2014 apparently right up there with Todoist and Things 3 \u2014 that includes a graphic calendar view. This allows you\u00a0simply to drag the tasks that you have set for a particular day down into your calendar so that each one is given a specific starting time and a duration. This effectively blocks your day into periods of productivity between your meetings and other appointments, and lets you see at a glance when it\u2019s time to say, \u201cNo, not today, Jos\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distraction-free, deep focus Pomodoro periods<\/h3>\n

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Although it\u2019s still early days, the daily planning session this requires is helping me be far more realistic about what can be rationally undertaken in a single working day and allows me to carve out precious Pomodoro<\/strong>\u00a0periods for deep focus work \u2014 periods of distraction-free time during which I switch off my email and text notifications, silence my phone and grapple hand-to-hand with copywriting or strategy.<\/p>\n

This simple drag-and-drop integration of calendar and the to-do list is TickTick\u2019s killer app for me, but other compelling features are:<\/p>\n